Aleem Khan

Mo­bile op­er­a­tor Dig­i­cel is ap­ply­ing for a sub­scrip­tion broad­cast­ing ser­vice via a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work, which is be­lieved to be a ca­ble li­cence, ac­cord­ing to a Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) no­tice dat­ed Au­gust 18 post­ed to its Web site dur­ing the week end­ing Au­gust 29.

Com­ments on, or ob­jec­tions to, Dig­i­cel's ap­pli­ca­tion for the li­cence may be sub­mit­ted to TATT on or be­fore Sep­tem­ber 15, 2014. In sub­scrip­tion TV, Flow, the mar­ket leader, has com­pe­ti­tion from TSTT (bmo­bile's par­ent), Di­recTV, Green Dot, small­er rur­al providers like Ma­yaro­Ca­bleTV, and even some off-the-grid pi­rates.

Dig­i­cel is no new­com­er to ca­ble TV. Dig­i­cel al­ready owns ca­ble tele­vi­sion as­sets across the Caribbean. On Ju­ly 17 (2014), Dig­i­cel had made an an­nounce­ment that it was rolling out fi­bre in sev­er­al mar­kets through its sub-sea fi­bre op­tic ac­qui­si­tion that, at the time, was said to be "near­ing com­ple­tion."

Dig­i­cel had an­nounced that it reached an agree­ment with Tel­star Ca­ble Ltd to ac­quire its ca­ble and fi­bre net­work in Ja­maica. Tel­star pro­vides ca­ble TV, broad­band and tele­pho­ny ser­vices.On com­ple­tion–sub­ject to ap­proval by Ja­maica's Broad­cast­ing Com­mis­sion–Dig­i­cel said it would in­vest in the net­work to in­crease cov­er­age and fur­ther ex­pand the prod­ucts, ser­vices and con­tent avail­able to ca­ble cus­tomers in Ja­maica.

The ac­qui­si­tion of Tel­star was Dig­i­cel's fourth Caribbean ca­ble ac­qui­si­tion and will in­crease its ca­ble foot­print to six mar­kets:

�2 Turks and Caicos Is­lands, April 2014: Dig­i­cel ac­quired WIV Ca­ble TV in the Turks and Caicos Is­lands and its sis­ter com­pa­ny, TCT, which of­fers broad­band ser­vices.

�2 Do­mini­ca, Feb­ru­ary 2014: Dig­i­cel ac­quired SAT Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vides a range of TV, tele­pho­ny and broad­band In­ter­net ser­vices to res­i­den­tial and busi­ness cus­tomers in Do­mini­ca.

�2 An­guil­la, Nevis and Montser­rat, No­vem­ber 2013: Dig­i­cel ac­quired Caribbean Ca­ble Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Hold­ing Ltd, a ca­ble TV and In­ter­net ser­vice provider in An­guil­la, Nevis and Montser­rat.

Ma­jor fi­bre build-out in T&T

"Dig­i­cel has al­so been in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in green­field fi­bre build-outs hav­ing bro­ken ground on next-gen­er­a­tion fi­bre net­works in Bar­ba­dos, Haiti, Ja­maica and Trinidad," Dig­i­cel said in last month's re­lease."This in­vest­ment in fi­bre re­flects the com­pa­ny's on­go­ing fo­cus on busi­ness so­lu­tions which has shown al­most 40 per cent year on year growth in rev­enues. These fi­bre builds are near­ing com­ple­tion and pre-sell­ing of the ser­vices has al­ready com­menced."

On its sub­ma­rine fi­bre op­tic ac­qui­si­tion, Dig­i­cel said: "In or­der to dri­ve the de­liv­ery of mul­ti­me­dia con­tent–as well as im­prove of­fer­ings for mo­bile da­ta ser­vices and busi­ness so­lu­tions–Dig­i­cel has al­so se­cured sig­nif­i­cant off-is­land sub-sea fi­bre band­width."

In a De­cem­ber 23, 2013, re­lease, Dig­i­cel said it en­tered in­to a share and as­set pur­chase agree­ment with Glob­al Caribbean Fi­bre to ac­quire "cer­tain sub­ma­rine fi­bre as­sets in the East­ern Caribbean re­gion. This deal will pro­vide Dig­i­cel with a whol­ly-owned sub­ma­rine fi­bre op­tic ca­ble net­work of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,100 kilo­me­ters (km), pro­vid­ing ca­pac­i­ty from Trinidad to Guade­loupe. The pro­posed trans­ac­tion is sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval and is ex­pect­ed to close in the com­ing weeks."

Dig­i­cel al­so en­tered in­to a trans­ac­tion with Glob­al Caribbean Fi­bre and Glob­al Caribbean Net­work to pro­vide sub­ma­rine fi­bre ca­pac­i­ty from Guade­loupe to Puer­to Ri­co with on­wards con­nec­tiv­i­ty to the main­land Unit­ed States.With these new ca­pa­bil­i­ties, Dig­i­cel said it was "un­der­pin­ning its com­mit­ments to de­liv­er­ing best net­work, best ser­vice and best val­ue and will once again be at the fore­front of dri­ving com­pe­ti­tion and con­sumer choice in the re­gion."

In to­tal, Dig­i­cel has se­cured ac­cess to a net­work com­prised of 15 sub­ma­rine seg­ments with a reach of some 3,100 km across the Caribbean."Dig­i­cel will al­so have ex­ten­sive on­wards ca­pac­i­ty on oth­er sub­ma­rine net­works con­nect­ing lo­ca­tions such as Mi­a­mi, Paris and New York," the com­pa­ny had said in a re­lease.

Dig­i­cel Group CEO, Colm Delves, in writ­ten com­ments said: "We are in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in ca­ble TV, con­tent and fi­bre across our mar­kets to en­sure that Dig­i­cel is po­si­tioned at the fore­front of a da­ta in­ten­sive world where our cus­tomers are able to en­joy mul­ti­me­dia ex­pe­ri­ences on mul­ti­ple de­vices and avail of ad­vanced so­lu­tions for their busi­ness­es."We look for­ward to ex­pand­ing our foot­print fur­ther in this space in the com­ing year through a com­bi­na­tion of ac­qui­si­tions and green­field builds."

Dig­i­cel Group is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions provider with op­er­a­tions in 32 mar­kets in the Caribbean, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Asia Pa­cif­ic. Af­ter 13 years of op­er­a­tion, to­tal in­vest­ment to date stands at over US$5 bil­lion world­wide, ac­cord­ing to a Dig­i­cel state­ment.

Dig­i­cel post­ed a net loss of US$198.4 mil­lion in its 2013 fis­cal year, down from a prof­itable po­si­tion of US$47.2 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2012 and its bonds are rat­ed non-in­vest­ment grade or "junk" by Fitch Rat­ings and Moody's, two of the world's top three cred­it rat­ing agen­cies.In March, Dig­i­cel tapped the high-yield bond mar­ket to bor­row US$865 mil­lion in se­nior notes,

A state­ment from Dig­i­cel Group Ltd yes­ter­day said it planned to use the net pro­ceeds from the of­fer­ing to re­pur­chase any and all of its 10.50 per cent se­nior notes due 2018, pay any re­lat­ed fees and ex­pens­es, and re­deem the se­nior notes, if any, that re­main out­stand­ing af­ter the com­ple­tion of the ten­der of­fer.